


Thorn in the Side of the Devil

by bois_de_cerf



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: (kind of), Chronic Pain, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Self-Harm Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 17:12:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14525388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bois_de_cerf/pseuds/bois_de_cerf
Summary: One thing no one realizes about Daredevil is that fighting every night hurts.Story is NOT about self-harm, but self-harm trigger warning for romanticization of pain and injury.





	Thorn in the Side of the Devil

**Author's Note:**

> Set in a near-canon world where Matt has stopped being the Daredevil, and also Foggy had a vitamin D deficiency when he was 13.

The first day he doesn’t go out, he actually feels worse. The second day after a workout is always the sorest, so it’s not that weird that the intense ass-kicking of two nights ago is still affecting his muscles. He gets up, absentmindedly catalogues his injuries (no broken stitches, several bruises, no evidence of a concussion), cracks his joints, and begins his day. When he gets to the office, he runs into a desk (not to be blind, he’s just thinking too hard about the case) and winces when it catches some stitches; he wipes a wet, iron-smelling blood drop off a file folder. It’s a normal day.  
The second day Matt doesn’t go out, when he wakes up, he almost hyperventilates. Nothing hurts.  
Okay, not nothing; a few cuts still sting the smallest bit when he moves. But it’s hardly anything. And the feeling of no pain is so profoundly strange that he panics, gasping, not sure where he is or who he is or what happened. His senses come online and he realizes he’s where he should be; he’s just not hurting. Objectively, that’s a good thing. It’s not a problem, he tells himself. He’s just not used to this. He didn’t even realize pain was that much a part of his life, to be honest. But it is, apparently. It really, really is.  
All day, Matt can’t shake the unease. Something just feels off. His shoes feel comfortable because the fracture from a goon stepping on them healed last week. He grabs a cup of coffee and the heat doesn’t sting the cut because that healed two days ago. The arms of his chair don’t bother him because that bruise faded last night.  
Without the pain, he feels a little—untethered. On edge.  
Foggy corners him about it, later. “Hey buddy,” he says, friendly, as though Matt won’t notice he’s worried. “How are you doing?” He lowers his voice. “I know you haven’t gone out. Is it getting to you.”  
“The thing about going out,” Matt says slowly, “is every day since I started I’ve woken up and something hurts. Usually several things.” He tilts his head, as though looking at Foggy. “It’s been two days, and that’s gone. I don’t know what to do with myself.”  
“Oh,” says Foggy softly. His heart beats faster which means—something. Matt doesn’t know. And then—  
“When I was 13,” Foggy says, “I had a vitamin D deficiency. Guess that’s what I get for being a hermit.” He pauses. “I was tired, all the time. My muscles hurt. I was lethargic and depressed. Then we got the blood work done. It came back that all I needed was a vitamin. I mean, it was crazy. But I got better. Literally, I woke up one day and just had energy. But one of my first thoughts, when I woke up, was that I should kill myself, because that’s what I’d been thinking when I got up, every day for weeks. My second thought was that I didn’t actually want to, and I was kind of weirded out by the thought that had become so familiar.” Foggy pauses. “Is that—anything like this, buddy?”  
“Yes,” says Matt, and of course he would get it, because Foggy gets—a lot. Everything, really, except the fighting that landed Matt here in the first place. “How do I fix it?”  
“Well, for me it just… went away. But yours is more of an addi– yours is different. I can’t tell you if it’s going to go away, completely, ever. Can I touch you?”  
Foggy’s been hovering with his hand over Matt’s arm for a minute. “Yeah,” Matt laughs. “Yeah, go ahead.”  
“It will get better,” Foggy says earnestly. “Matt, it will.”  
“I just feel… wrong.”  
“Let’s go get coffee,” Foggy decides, grabbing his jacket off the chair. “Karen can hold down the fort. You need it.”  
“I don’t need coffee,” Matt responds disdainfully. I need a fight, he thinks.  
Foggy opens the door and then jabs a finger in his direction. “I’m pointing at you and it’s very intimidating,” he tells him. “You. Need. Coffee. Hot beverages, man, they’re comforting.”  
Karen appears in the doorway, and Matt can hear the smile in her voice. “He just wants an excuse to see that cute barista,” she whispers conspiratorially.  
“Well, of course,” Foggy answers. “She’s my true best friend.” His heart beats that that’s a lie, and Matt can’t help but smile.  
“Alright, alright,” he acquiesces, going to grab his cane. “Coffee it is.”  
They go and get coffee, and Foggy does flirt shamelessly with the barista, and Matt sits down and it doesn’t hurt, and he and Foggy just… talk. He sips his coffee, which is really wonderful coffee, and they talk about the firm, and memories from college, and Foggy tells him about cute dogs that pass the window. It’s nice. It doesn’t make sense that good coffee and good company would make him feel the same as being in horrible pain. He tries not to think about what it says about him that it does.  
Regardless, they leave the shop and he feels more settled, more himself, than he has in a while. If this is what it’s like being Matt Murdock and not the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen—he’ll manage. Yeah, he’ll manage.


End file.
